Many errands ran today. Now it is 4:36pm. An early dinner of dark chocolate and soda water. I sit in the office listening to coworkers complain about a seminar. I am not in a good mood. I did not sleep well. Twelve and a half hours ago, I wake for no reason. I am pulled from a deep sleep like a corpse from a well. Unlike usual bouts of insomnia, my heart is not racing, is not embedded in panic of origins unknown. I am calm but awake. An ideal combination just not at such an ungodly hour. I have learned to not ignore insomnia, to not reattempt sleep. I switch on the lamp beside my bed. A tower of books is immediately illuminated, most unread, some just barely dipped into. I have them stacked so that their bindings face away from my sleeping place. Their pages are the color of a house you would find in the Cotswolds. Flagstones Mom chose to pave our backyard were that color. Do I want to read any? Not now. Why start now? Too depressing. I stand up and go to the front room. I turn on the overhead light-bulb. Warmth on my olive-green curtains. I find my journal. An old-fashioned American composition notebook. Cardboard covers bound with tape, generally flimsy, unlike myself. I go back to bed but not to sleep. I write for two hours. My handwriting looks different because my stomach is to the mattress, with my arms pressing down hard. After two hours I am satisfied. And the writing has the feeling of relief, a windpipe unblocked at the last possible moment. I switch off the lamp beside my bed. Slowly, I am lowered back into the well. Now, twelve and a half hours later, I want that feeling back.
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